1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a plasma display panel. More particularly, the invention relates to a plasma display panel having a dummy barrier rib with an improved structure in a non-display area that reduces and/or prevents bending of an outer portion and/or end portion of the dummy barrier to help reduce and/or prevent noise during operation of the plasma display panel.
2. Description of the Related Art
Plasma display panels (PDPs) are flat panel display devices that excite phosphors in vacuum discharge cells with ultraviolet (VUV) rays generated by discharge of gas in the discharge cells. PDPs may be used to provide wide screen display devices. In particular, PDPs may be used to provide wide large screen display devices with high resolution.
In PDPs, discharge cells may be partitioned by barrier ribs disposed, for example, in a stripe or lattice-type arrangement in a space between a front substrate and a rear substrate. The barrier ribs may define discharge cells in a display area and may define dummy cells in a non-display area. The non-display area may surround the display area to help ensure stable discharge of outer ones of the discharge cells in the display area. A barrier rib forming such a dummy cell may be called a dummy barrier rib.
Barrier ribs are generally formed from a barrier rib layer made from a paste. The barrier rib layer may be patterned by a sandblast method, a press method, or an etching method using a photosensitive material. The barrier ribs may then be baked at a temperature of 450° C. or more to remove binders and impurities included in the paste to help increase the strength of the barrier ribs.
When the barrier ribs are baked, one or more components of the paste used to form the barrier rib layer may vaporize and other components of the barrier rib layer may combine with each other. As a result of the vaporization and/or combining of the components during baking, the resulting barrier rib may be smaller than the corresponding portion of the resulting patterned barrier ribs. As a result of such shrinking during baking, the outer and/or end portions of the barrier ribs may not be strong enough to maintain their form, and the outer portions and/or the end portions of the barrier ribs may bend or deform. In particular, as a result of the baking, the end portions or the outermost portions of the barrier rib may bend upward and/or inward toward respective inner portions of the barrier ribs.
More particularly, in known barrier rib patterns and structures, end portions of the barrier ribs are more susceptible to bending and deforming than other portions (e.g., inner portions) of the barrier ribs because the inner portions of the barrier ribs generally tend to have substantially uniform strength. Thus, in known barrier rib patterns and structures, a bottom side of the end portion of the barrier rib may detach from a dielectric layer, thereby bending the end portion of the barrier rib.
As a result of such bending or deforming, the outermost portions or the end portions of the barrier ribs may have top portions that are farther from or at a greater height relative to a substrate than top portions of, for example, other portions of the barrier ribs. As a result, as shown in FIG. 8, a gap (marked by a circle in FIG. 8) may be generated between a front substrate 100 and a barrier rib 110. Such a gap may cause noise from vibration that may occur, for example, when the PDP is driven.
The above information disclosed in this Background section is only provided to aid in the understanding of one or more aspects of the invention detailed below, and is not to be considered nor construed as constituting prior art.